


Time for End and Beginning to Meet

by nerakrose



Series: boy, have I got a thing for you [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, M/M, Polyamorous Character, Polyamory, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, no love triangles in this fic, poly!steve is the solution to all my problems, sam is actual perfection, steve spends most of this fic ogling his men tbh, the alternative title is actually 'poly pile of squishy'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-19
Updated: 2014-05-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 18:22:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1658018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerakrose/pseuds/nerakrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve has all the patience and hope in the world. Everything will be okay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time for End and Beginning to Meet

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to palavapeite and mrs_jack_turner for betaing this for me and leaving me squeey comments ♥

Steve doesn't mean to use that line again, seven decades later and fitting oddly in his mouth, like he shouldn't be saying it again. He's not sure it applies to this situation anyway; looking for his amnesiac assassin ex-lover with his newest love. He does anyway.

"Do you think it's possible to be in love with more than one person?" he asks, and he's looking at Sam's face as he says it, looking at his right cheekbone and his nose in profile and the line of his jaw.

He'd asked the same of Peggy once, one early morning as they were studying maps and Phillips had left briefly to get more coffee, and Peggy had given him a considering look.

"I believe there's more than one kind of love," she'd answered.

Bucky's answer had been different.

"Yes," Sam says, turning away from the road to look at Steve briefly. "Is this a proposition?"

"I don't know," Steve says. "I was just...thinking."

When he'd asked Bucky the very same question, they'd been crouching in a mudhole just outside a HYDRA base in Italy. 

"Is this about Peggy?" he'd simply said, and Steve had said that, yeah, it was. They'd been quiet for a long time after that, then they'd made their move on the base. 

It was afterwards, on their way back, that Bucky had spoken up again. "She clearly loves you," he'd said. "I'd be cruel to keep you from her. To you and her both."

Steve had regarded him, unsure of what was happening. "I still love you," he'd said eventually. "That hasn't changed."

"I get it," Bucky had said, and they didn't speak of it again.

In the end, it hadn't mattered.

"Whatever, man," Sam says. "Unless you're hiding somebody up your sleeve I don't know about it doesn't matter, does it?"

Steve flinches. "I guess not."

Sam watches him, but doesn't speak. They keep driving.

They find Bucky and things are difficult for a while. Bucky doesn't trust Steve, he only barely tolerates Sam and he is completely unresponsive towards anyone else for a long time.

Natasha speaks to him a few times. It's hard, she says, for reasons she can't really explain. It's hard for Bucky too, and eventually they stop trying.

He doesn't answer to Bucky for at least eight months, insisting on James, or Barnes. Steve swallows his hurt.

Peggy passes away and Steve wonders whether she'd have liked to see Bucky again. He wonders if she'd have liked to meet Sam. She'd have liked Sam, he's sure of it. He thinks about the look she gave him when he asked her that question, over half a century ago, and he thinks that yes, she'd have liked Sam.

Bucky (James, Steve corrects himself) insists on keeping his hair long. He puts it in a ponytail and pushes his bangs behind his ears when they fall in his face. 

"It's about identity," Sam says one evening, in the Vietnamese place round the corner. It's their six months anniversary, Steve thinks idly.

"It's all about identity with him," Steve replies. "I know." He thinks about asking again, but decides against it. Not now.

He thinks about how Peggy had accepted the way things had been with him and Bucky and he thinks about how Sam accepts the things the way they are with him and Bucky (James) right now. Awkward, broken friendship, if that. More than Steve could ask for, but not what he wants. Not enough.

"Sometimes I think," Steve says, "that this...what it is. It's harder than losing... I've lost the same things twice over in different ways."

"Sucks to be you, man," Sam says and Steve smiles despite himself. "You want to patch things up with Barnes eventually?"

Steve doesn't answer the question. Does he?

Six months become one year and James becomes Bucky again, if a little worse for wear. Steve leaves Peggy flowers, Natasha and Bucky can bear to be around one another and Sam continues being Steve's pillar of strength.

One year becomes two, and slowly, Bucky and Steve repair their friendship. Sam watches from the sidelines and Steve feels his stomach lurch more often than not.

"I asked you something once," Steve says to Bucky one afternoon. They're in the park, their shirts not nearly as soaked in sweat as the shirts of other runners around them. "I'd be curious to hear what your answer would be today."

"Spit it out," Bucky says. He's looking at Steve, strands of long hair falling into his face. His metal arm glistens in the sunlight. 

"Do you think it's possible to be in love with more than one person?" Steve asks. 

Bucky goes very still. "This isn't still about Peggy, is it?" He asks carefully. Unsure.

"No." Steve shakes his head. "It's about you."

There are children nearby, their voices and laughter masking the silence between them.

"Can we even go back to what we were?" Bucky eventually asks.

"Probably not." Steve looks at the children, then back at Bucky. "I don't think we could. Something new, maybe."

"Hm." Bucky offers Steve his bottle of water. They don't touch the subject again for some time.

"You know Sam," Steve says two weeks later. "We're... We've been together a while."

"I know," Bucky answers. "You're not exactly subtle."

"You know Bucky," Steve says to Sam a week after that. "I'm in love with him. Still in love with him, in fact, although maybe part of it is a new kind of love."

Sam chokes on his coke. "You ditching me, Rogers?" Sam is incredulous, but something uncertain has snuck into his voice.

"Never," Steve answers. "I could never."

"But you can't give up on him either, huh?" Sam says, giving Steve a calculating look. "So this is what that was about. What you asked me, what, almost two years ago now."

"Do you remember your answer?" 

Steve remembers Sam's answer. He remembers that yes, how sure Sam sounded of it, how curious.

"It hasn't changed," Sam says. "So this is what it's about?"

"Only if it's okay," Steve says. "I want it to be okay." He says the words and a weight lifts, panic settling in instead. Panic and fear. He wants it to be okay. 

It's different now than it was then. The times have changed. He's selfish, and he allows himself to be selfish, to want. To want, to want it all, to open his heart to both of them, to want to be unafraid. To want both, to not have to choose. To not feel guilty.

"I think you two need to talk," Sam says. "But listen. This thing, okay, it's just between you and him, right?"

"Yeah," Steve answers, and there's a little glowing ember inside him now. "Nobody's asking you for a threesome, Sam."

Sam looks relieved and maybe it stings a little, but Steve understands. 

Peggy had been the same, though in not as many words. 

"There you are," Bucky says, having climbed onto Steve's fire escape. "Been looking for you." He looks like he wants to say something, and the little ember inside Steve flares up, but Bucky doesn't say anything at all.

"I want," Steve says, then stops. Checks himself. "What do _you_ want?" 

Bucky sits next to Steve. The alley is far below, but there's a cat down there, perching atop a dustbin. "I want everything to be okay," he says and Steve nearly sobs.

"I love you. I still love you," Steve says. "Whether you still love me or not."

"I do," Bucky assures him. "It's going to be okay."

Steve looks at him, and for the first time since he saw Bucky on that bridge two years ago, unmasked and murderous, he thinks it might be.


End file.
